Weekend Links with Jon Marthaler: Has Gus Johnson become a bad college hoops announcer?

Blog Post by: Michael Rand

February 11, 2012 - 3:48 PM

Commenter Jon Marthaler bakes up a delicious batch of links for you every weekend. Sorry for getting them up so late today; this incident played a role. Other times, you can find Jon here. Jon?

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Cast your mind back to last summer, and the Women's soccer World Cup. You might remember the USA-Japan final, because you probably watched it; at the time it was the most-Tweeted event in the history of Twitter, eclipsing even the royal wedding and the death of Osama bin Laden. And if you watched the game, you might remember USA forward Alex Morgan, who scored the first goal of the game, a tremendous goal that any striker would be proud of.

You also might remember Morgan for being wildly popular during the tournament for her attractiveness. Seemingly hours after the USA's heartbreaking loss to Japan, Morgan was making red-carpet appearances back in the States. And she was in the news again on Friday, as she was interviewed and pictured by SI.com because she's in the upcoming Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue.

This bothers me. Not because I have any interest in telling Alex Morgan what she should and should not do; if she wants to be photographed in nothing but bodypaint for SI, that's her business. And not because I'm holding myself out as the last bastion of enlightenment, a seawall holding back the crass sexualized tide of popular culture. But at some level, it seems like the popular reaction to women's sports is more about the attractiveness of the participants and less about the attractiveness of their play.

You could cogently argue both sides of the debate about celebrating female athletes for their looks, and I don't wish to re-fight that battle. And female athletes certainly don't have to make a choice; they can be both athletically talented and good-looking at the same time. But I do know that reducing Alex Morgan - 14 goals for the national team, and the potential to star for another decade for the USA - to a cheesecake magazine spread feels wrong somehow. I'd like for our athletes to be more admired for what they do on the field than what they look like in a state of undress.

*Remember when Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski was going to coach the L.A. Lakers, and then changed his mind, purportedly because of an email from a student? That student, Andrew Humphries, takes a look back at the hoopla - and explains why the experience, in part, pushed him away from Blue Devil hoops.

That'll do it for me. Enjoy your Saturday, especially tonight's battle between the Timberwolves and NBA sensation Jeremy Lin's New York Knicks, which is on (checks schedule)... Well, I guess this one isn't on television. Take that, fans who wanted to watch the most interesting Wolves game of the near future!